ARISE AND SHINE
Prayer: Lord, help us arise and shine, to illuminate the educational landscape around us through our love for and obedience to you and those whom we serve.
Scripture: Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:4 NIV
Arise, my people! Let your light shine for all the nations [students and staff] to see! For the glory of the Lord is streaming from you. (Isaiah 60:1 LB)
Virginia Kingston, at age 35, after serving in education for thirteen years in the United States, sold and gave away all her possessions. She left the United States to enter the mission field as an English teacher in communist China. She has now served thirty years in this foreign field in three different public Chinese universities. God has given her immense favor with the students and her administrators. She not only teaches English but several American culture studies including a course, The Bible as Literature, which she proposed to her director several years ago. She holds a low key Bible study class for students on Sunday evenings. She has “loaned” hundreds of Bibles to students during her many years of service. (It is against the law to give them away.) Some of the students she serves have made life transforming decisions to follow and serve Jesus Christ because of her quiet unassuming witness.
When asked about the courage it took for her, as a single woman, to leave her culture and family behind to serve Christ in a communist nation, Virginia humbly shrugged it off saying, “It’s not courage. It’s just obedience.”
Virginia is a lighthouse courageously shining out over a dark landscape, sweeping the education landscape humbly and fearlessly while standing for Christ. Are we courageously shining the light of Christ here in education in America, the home of the free and the brave, or are we shaded lampposts dimmed by fear, timidity, and busyness?
God’s message today is, “Fear not and get connected. Arise and shine in the darkness.” Power up! Regularly pray alone in your classroom and also with other believers where you work. Many of us are operating at only partial spiritual power because we are not fully connected to God while in the workplace. Get on God’s grid. Watts up!! Arise and shine!!!
Reflection: Am I fully illuminated by Jesus Christ in my professional life? What does Jesus want me to do for Him in education?
Getting Real: Power up! Plug into Jesus in education. Pray secretly alone for your school and agree with other teachers in prayer at the school where you work.
Copyright Don Clark. Email: [email protected]